Author Malcolm Gladwell began his career as a journalist at the Washington Post, then joined The New Yorker as a staff writer. He is fascinated with the large effects that small things can create. His first book, The Tipping Point, looks at how some ideas catch fire with the public; Blink considers the way quick thinking can outdo slow-and-careful reasoning. By 2019, he has published five bestselling books and released a sixth.

A young immigrant from Guinea, Amadou Diallo lived in the Bronx in 1999 and, late one evening, was standing on his front porch when approached by four plainclothes policemen. With poor English skills and fearing that the four men are not police but robbers, Diallo started to run, then stopped and tried to pull something from his pocket. The police, assuming he was drawing forth a gun, opened fire and killed Diallo—who, it turns out, was trying merely to produce his wallet to give to them.

The four policemen were tried and acquitted of manslaughter and second-degree murder, but their case points up the perils of police-suspect encounters, and how the intuitive human mind can fail during extreme crises.